11/20/2024
I’ve put together a series of Advent readings running from December 1 and ending on Christmas Day (copies are available at church and there’s a link down below). I started off writing a line that might be a little controversial . . . so I thought I’d better clarify it a bit before you revolt on me!
In my comments for December 1, I wrote, “The good news begins in Genesis 1. If we set aside the (unhelpful) debates over whether or not Genesis 1 is to be taken literally or not, we’ll see that Genesis 1 presents a picture of the universe created to be the temple of God.”
“Unhelpful debate.” Why unhelpful?
There’s something the first book of the Bible and the last book of the Bible have in common: interpretation gets replaced by speculation. Interpretation deals with the text; speculation leaves the text behind.
What I mean by that is we get so tied up in debating whether or not the 6 days were literal 24 hour days (Genesis) or in guessing who is the antichrist (Revelation), that we kick the text to the corner and end up ignoring what the scripture was written to convey.
Since I’m going into detail about something I wrote for December 1, I’ll stick to Genesis and save Revelation for another date (but I will get to it, sooner rather than later).
When we read Genesis 1 slowly and pay attention to the text, we might be surprised to find God creating light on the first day, but not creating the luminaries that make light (the sun, moon, and stars) until the fourth day! And when God creates the light, God doesn’t call the light “Light,” God calls the light “Day.” What’s God up to?
Well, most never get to that question because they either get busy trying to explain this scientifically while others will dismiss it all as myth.
But what is God saying to us? THAT’S what really matters. Let’s look further . . .
There are too many details to get into, so let me point out just a few. If you go back and read Genesis 1:1-13, you’ll see that in the first 3 days of creation, God creates great spaces or realms, and in 1:14-25, on days 4-6, God furnishes the spaces. Notice how they line up:
Day 1: Day/Night Day 4: Sun, moon, and stars
Day 2: Sky/Sea Day 5: Fish/birds
Day 3: Sea/Dry land Day 6: Land animals/bugs and . . .
Two important acts on days 6 and 7 explain what God is doing. Whenever someone built a temple in biblical times, the last thing brought into the temple was the image of the god. And so it wouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone that on day 6, God places his image in his Creation. For the readers, whether Isrealite or not, hearing this passage read for the first time, this would have been an “Aha!” moment as they realize what Genesis 1 has been describing.
God’s universe is God’s temple.
But instead of a silver or gold image, incapable of moving, God places into his temple his living, breathing image. Unlike the pagan images, this image is very capable of moving and so God gives his image the vocation of ruling over his creation. Listen to God’s commission:
“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth . . . Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28).
Dominion. That’s the language of royalty! Just as God rules over all the universe, God placed humankind on the earth, created in his image, to exercise God’s wise and loving rule over the earth.
Then on the seventh day comes the second key action: “And . . . God rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” Rested . . . was God tired? I was worn out after moving a refrigerator Monday, I can’t imagine how I’d be after creating a universe. But, God is God! God does not get tired!
So why does God rest? N. T. Wright, in his book, Simply Jesus, writes, “When God made the world, he “rested” on the seventh day. This doesn’t just mean that God took a day off. It means that in the previous six days God was making a world—heaven and earth together—for his own use. Like someone building a home, God finished the job and then went in to take up residence, to enjoy what he had built. Creation was itself a temple, the Temple, the heaven-and-earth structure built for God to live in.”
The universe is God’s temple, and God rules through his image, which is you and me. All my life, whenever I studied this chapter, I was caught up in speculation about the days and how it fits into science, etc., and completely missed the point of the passage.
When we leave the text, we replace God’s agenda for the scripture with our agenda . . . and in the case of Genesis 1, we miss God’s agenda for us!
And that is why debates about whether or not to read Genesis 1 literally or not are unhelpful. Stay with the scripture, stay in the scripture, and you’ll never go wrong!
Blessings!
Pastor Terry